Teaching, Learning, and the use of Wikis

Article Link:
http://campustechnology.com/articles/40629_1/


As a college student in the time of rising technology, “wikis” are one technology topic that I have used frequently in the last few years of highschool and in college. A wiki is a software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. A wiki is a web communication and collaboration tool that can be used to help students in learning within the web environment.
The great article that I found was written by the University of Southern California in there search to implement various types of social software into the classroom. One of these being the use of wikis. They identified six general approaches for how wikis could be implemented in schooling or around there campus. The first approach that can be used within teaching and education is for student journaling. Teacher’s can have there students journal on a wiki to demonstrate writing skills, to expose there knowledge of a certain topic, and to benefit from peer and teaching review. The second reason why teacher’s may want to implement wiki’s into there classroom is for students own personal portfolios. Students are able to collect and organized digital resources such as notes, images, web resources, and PowerPoint slides. Another way wikis can be used in education is by having the students work on a project together. This can be done by allowing them to work in small groups on a larger class project, or to have the students as a whole create and maintain the course Web site. The forth approach is by using a wiki as a research tool. This is something that I have done in the past. By having multiple collaborators collect ideas, papers, timelines, and documents it makes it easy for a student to do research on one topic and from one website. Another positive to using a wiki is for teachers to organize common course assets, such as syllabi, office hours, and assessments, without having to actually meet. The sixth general use for a wiki is for the use of conferences and meetings. By allowing presenters and attendees access to add and edit content, the conference wiki can serve as a resource before, during, and after the event.
I do believe that further research needs to be done in the area of the ages of students using wiki’s and how easy or hard it is for a student to use or make a wiki themselves. I believe students in highschool probably will have a greater use for wiki’s in the classroom but can younger students benefit from wiki’s too? The article I read pinpointed older college students, making me wonder if wiki’s are more for young adults then any other age group. I think this would be useful for those of us who will be teaching younger students not older highschoolers or college students.